Have you ever had the sort of experience in which you met a person, enjoyed them mildly, and then grew closer and closer to them over time, realizing more with each interaction just how splendid they truly were? Or sat down to watch a movie with some friends in a distracted state – maybe your laptop was open and you were stumbling through the internet – and you paid little attention, only to find on second viewing, that it was really quite good, that on third or fourth viewing, you were considering the idea that it just may be your favorite? Maybe that annoying friend who knows every song ever popped a CD into your car by some band you had never heard of and you were irritated because all you really wanted to do was talk on drive up to Marietta, but then, you found it was reasonably pleasing – so they burned the CD for you – so you left it in your stereo and didn’t bother changing it – and before you knew it it’s all you were listening to?

Probably. That’s how it goes, I think. Some of the best elements of life certainly seem to pop out of nowhere and leave you, months down the road, wondering how you could have possibly lived without them. Or perhaps you’re a less drastic character than I, and they simply leave you wondering how you could have not appreciated them earlier. Either way, it’s a familiar experience, the gradual falling for a person, place, or thing, yes?

The first time I saw Today the Moon, Tomorrow the Sun, I didn’t think much beyond, “What an odd and slightly cumbersome name for a band” and “that little blond girl is so cute when she dances” and “hmm, this music is pleasant.” I was at the Fish Market, a warehouse in West End that serves as something between a home, gymnasium, and music venue, and I was joining in the celebration of haveyouheard.net’s birthday party. By the time the band went on, I was ready to go home, having had a long day at work and feeling slightly overwhelmed by the trapezes and unicycles surrounding me. I stayed for a while, enjoyed them mildly, and drove back across I-20 to my comfortable bed. Months later, when I was interviewing the band directly, they laughed after I told them that was my first experience seeing them live: “I think we all had West Nile flu or something that night. Bad night to see us for the first time,” the guitarist said jokingly.

I didn’t see Today the Moon perform again for a couple of weeks after that. The next time was at Star Bar, and they had a larger, more involved audience, and a much tighter sense of unity. I had invited an old friend, sensing that theirs was the kind of music she would enjoy, and I was ecstatic when she started joining in with the dancing crowd. This time, I paid more attention to what the band was doing – noticing their idiosyncrasies as well as what seemed must be intentional stage movement. They knew how to move the crowd, certainly, and it was an exciting show.

During our interview – which felt much more like a group of friends sitting around enjoying themselves, incidentally – I mentioned the band’s unique stage presence, their ability to move the audience, and their excellently timed interactions. I was met with delighted surprise on all four of their faces as I tried to question how they planned that sort of stage movement. Jeremy, the drummer and easily the most excitable of the group, blurted out, “We’ve never talked about anything we do on stage! Well, the music, sure! But that’s really it!” So it’s all organic. Pure musical enjoyment. We live in far too suspicious of an age to swallow that, don’t we? Cregg, who is the band’s lead guitarist and has by far the most ‘rock star’ stage moves of the group, described a recent show in Alabama in which he spontaneously ran barefoot across the venue’s bar simply to get people up and moving. “We just want people to enjoy themselves,” he explained.

I certainly never questioned that the members of Today the Moon, Tomorrow the Sun enjoyed themselves while performing. My third time seeing them perform live was at 529, and my interest in the band had grown exponentially over the months. They sealed the deal on my admiration with that particular show. 529 in East Atlanta is a relatively new venue that is quickly, and deservedly, becoming a hot spot in town. They also have an extremely small stage, and a 79 person capacity. Today the Moon was set in an excellent lineup with Atlanta bands Tealights and This Piano Plays Itself. The place was packed out. I made sure to shuffle my way to the front before Today the Moon, Tomorrow the Sun went on and I danced and experienced the kind of ‘concert high’ I hadn’t experienced since I was 18 at an Incubus concert (don’t judge me). Concert euphoria doesn’t possess me very often since I attend so many shows around town and this, probably beyond anything else, confirmed my suspicions – that this was a band worth not only seeing, but talking about, getting excited about, and getting to know.

After their set, I took off for the ladies’ room, quickly followed by Micah, the band’s bass player. “Go ahead, you’ve been on stage,” I told her. “Are you sure? I owe you one!” she responded. Well, I thought, perhaps she’ll give me an interview. (Fortunately, I never had to bring up the bathroom queue. The band brightly agreed to sit and chat when I asked the following week – without any weird persuasion on my part.)

I fought my way back through the crowd into the main room to find Lauren – cute little dancing blond girl, AKA lead vocals and keys – conversing with the group of friends I had arrived with. I introduced myself and felt like a teenybopper as I gushed over how great their performance had been. Lauren was receptive and personable and told us about their next show at The Earl.

The show at 529 was a perfect opportunity to see the band interacting on stage. Due to its size, you can see every nod and shake of head, every wince or grin. I made a game out of watching each of the band members in turn and found that they performed in a way that reminded me of a well-blocked Broadway play. There was always something going on, always something to watch, and each band member seemed to almost cue the next to draw the crowd’s eyes. During breaks in vocals, the two girls would dance together, Cregg would pull up his guitar neck and slide to his knees, Jeremy’s facial expressions while drumming are almost cartoonish. They have a delightful charisma onstage, and I felt certain from watching them that night that they were as close-knit a group as could be. Sure enough, discussing their relationships with each other was my favorite part of our interview. The girls are best friends, the boys are best friends, Lauren and Cregg are married, they all just seriously like each other a whole lot. “We have a really good time together – especially when we’re performing,” Lauren confirmed. I asked how they all met and was fondly reminded of my usual response when people ask me and my friends that question. A string of outside relationships and circumstances led them all to find each other and start playing together: Lauren and Jeremy went to high school together, Cregg was in a band with Jeremy, Cregg and Lauren started dating, Micah came to show that Cregg and Jeremy were playing in which Lauren was running tech, Micah was playing in a band with another girl and they approached Lauren to see if she was also a musician, Lauren and Micah started playing together in Avenge Vegas, one thing turned to the next, and by 2006, the four formed a band of their own. That’s an exhausting sentence, but it’s exciting to know that the band came together as organically as their stage performance has.

When I saw Today the Moon, Tomorrow the Sun at the Earl the week after the 529 show, I went prepared with my business partner to review the concert. Bradley crouched and tiptoed along every angle of the stage with his camera and I took notes on how the show went. It was the best I had seen them yet. Concert euphoria was at an all-time high and even my prudish roommate I had brought with me couldn’t help but dance a little.

Fast forward to three nights later, and we’re all sitting together at a round table in Manuel’s Tavern (“Just call me Lancelot,” Jeremy quipped as we sat down). Dave, our head photographer, is snapping photos a mile a minute. Micah is sharing her hummus with the table and Lauren is cheerfully mixing her macaroni & cheese with mashed potatoes (“Macky-mash!” she dubbed it). I ask about their plans and find out that the band is as ambitious as I had been hoping. They’re embarking on 15-20 day tours this summer. They’ll also record a new album in July, to be released in August. And they recently released a video for the song “Like it or Not” which can be seen on their MySpace page.

If you take a look at Today the Moon, Tomorrow the Sun’s MySpace page, you’ll notice that, rather than the kind of exploiting, braggy paragraphs so often found under the ‘About Me’ section, they have written a simple statement describing their balanced and creative approach to their music as well as life:

“Today the Moon, Tomorrow the Sun is about the collaborative. It’s about the connections between sound and people. It’s about the heart and the head. It’s for mistakes and triumphs, and against arrogance and underconfidence. Today the Moon, Tomorrow the Sun is about sharing the ideas that are created by four friends in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s all for sharing much further than there, penniless or plentiful.”

This struck a delightful cord in me, and so I made sure to ask them to expand on the statement. Lauren explained that their project has no specific leader, that they all contribute equal parts, and that they try their hardest to make sure that everyone involved is happy with everything they do – at least with the end results. None of them tries to pretend that the inherent squabbling that occurs within any close-knit team like theirs doesn’t exist, but they make it clear that they value each other’s opinions and feedback on every detail of their plans. Cregg emphasizes that the creative process is built as a unit, never as one person’s sole idea. They all contribute to songwriting, though it seems that Lauren, as the lead singer, has more of a say-so in that particular aspect. “It’s Lauren’s voice, it ought to be her words,”Micah sums up in her incredibly soothing tone. “But ‘Plantlife’ is a new song that Micah wrote, and it [probably contains] my favorite lyrics,” Lauren counters. Jeremy interjects at this point, with enthusiastic gesturing, “The songs build on themselves – Micah will bring an idea, say, and then Cregg will have a part to add, then Lauren, then me, etc.”

Mostly, they’re excited about touring, and pushing themselves as far as possible in order to follow their dreams. Lauren explained that one main goal for each of the band’s members is to be able to say that this was one dream they followed as far as they could. When I asked about their curious band name, I was treated to a great story. One late night/morning in the studio, giddy from recording one of their first demos, they started flipping through a spoof article in a magazine about Neil Armstrong’s first step on the moon. The writer of the article had come up with ideas for what other countries’ words would be had they landed first – what would Poland’s version of “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” translate to? The satirist came up with, “Today the moon, tomorrow the sun!” and the band loved the phrase. For a while, it didn’t provide them with anything more than a Pollock joke they had all shared, but it grew into something more meaningful. “This is where we are today, tomorrow who knows?” Jeremy sums up.

Micah sold her house to make the tour possible. Everyone involved in the project is taking preliminary steps in their lives to enable themselves to commit fully to moving their music forward. All members of Today the Moon, Tomorrow the Sun agree that you have to have a certain amount of reckless abandon to really go for it and make your dreams realize themselves, and they seem more than ready to take the plunge.